I started my new job last week and I’m loving it! I’m having so much fun but I’m now working a 50 hour week which means that my updates will be even more sporadic. I’ve paused my Mandarin studies for now as I don’t have enough time to study which I think I need to do if I want to go to class. I’m hoping that I’ll get into a good schedule re work/running/hobbies but I will see how I go. We are hoping to move into our own place in the summer as well so that is very exciting. I’ve already started to over-organize myself and think of all the (useless – Gawain would think!) things I want to buy :-). I love cool kitchen stuff, It’s a weakness of mine.
The running (jogging really) has started again which is good, partly inspired by my amazing friend, Claire Summerscale who ran the London Marathon for a fantastic charity SENSE which offers help to Deafblind people and their families. If any of you could support her with a donation that would be fantastic. Every little bit helps.
So back to the chess, I played my first game in what feels like forever on Monday. I even missed out on seeing The Spice Girls “Viva Forever: The Musical” so I thought that the chess gods would owe me one as I had a chess commitment for DK (Drunken Knights – London League not Surrey/BorderLeague). but it didn’t work out that way. My game was the opposite of my first “Sue” post, which was messing up a beautiful position. In my game on Monday, I forgot my theory and played bad move after bad move. I tried to simplify the position but instead completely missed all my opponent’s ideas and duly resigned. It went from being OK, to bad then to awful quite quickly and I didn’t quite work out how. Okay in all honesty I do know(sort of) how- I forgot my theory, had no idea of the plan and went on to play with no real plan which in hindsight is just a horrible plan. That doesn’t sound so bad if it was the first time but knowing that I have had this opening several times and always seem to fail in remembering the moves I’m really disappointed in myself. Perhaps I need a new line but in theory I understand what I need to play – it’s just on the day I get confused with the move order and plans. Btw, I’m not telling you what opening it was in case you guys become my opponent and that would be awful for me!
Losing because your opponent plays well versus losing because you play badly is obviously very different . If every single move your opponent played you would play yourself, that is just terrible as with what you were doing you could’ve beaten yourself but that’s the problem because your opponent plays all the moves you think are sensible and they just win. – A wise man told me that.
What can I do? Work on my chess?? – yes in theory that sounds like a great idea but feeling the way I do about chess at the moment means chess study isn’t at the top of my list until you see a game like this. NB. Reading back on this I sound so negative about my chess but I am a lot more positive now! Thanks Gawain for being so supportive – I know it’s not easy when Chess is such a huge part of your (our)life. I am looking forward to kicking butt at the final 4ncl weekend.
I’ve been following Mickey (*waves the Union Jack*) at the Alekhine Memorial, as now I am a Londoner. Not sure I’d say I’m British/English yet but I am definitely a London girl now. This game reminds me of why I play chess (one of the reasons). My style is aggressive and I love hacking away but going through Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s win against Ling Diren was inspiring. Beautiful game! Maxime in the press conference called himself “lucky” as he had looked at it all before. Shows how important prep can be!
I hope to keep up my running, the healthy eating is sort of gone out the window but will see about it. Trying to convince the hubby to do a half marathon but we need to plan ahead as we don’t want to try doing it in winter time! Hehe